NINA CHANEL ABNEY

When I met Nina Chanel Abney on the occasion of her FOCUS show at The Modern in Fort Worth, she had just returned from South Africa where she spent three weeks. This much needed vacation was taken after her critically acclaimed duel solo shows opened at both Mary Boone Gallery and Jack Shainman in New York on the same night. Through her friendly smile, she mentions that she will be flying out to Paris in the morning for her show at Palais de Tokyo then flying back to open her solo show in her home town at the Chicago Cultural Center on what would end up being a very snowy day. About a week after our conversation, Abney was a recipient of a grant from the Tiffany Foundation. Needless to say, she has been busy. - Arthur Peña, Texas Contributor

Twenty-thousand years after man first huddled in a dimly lit cave and consciously placed marks upon a wall in an attempt to better understand, and perhaps change, the world, contemporary artists continue to make marks on two-dimensional surfaces with much the same intent. No matter how many times painting has “died” over the years, it keeps coming back to take another shot - reanimated, reinvigorated and ready to deliver the goods. And why not? People still respond and attend to the oldest of mediums with a reverence that no other artifact of cultural production can elicit.

In 2016, artists continued to make paintings, while galleries and cultural institutions dedicated the majority of their exhibition space to their display. During art fair week in Miami in early December, which was marred by low attendance due to post-election malaise and the specter of Zika, there was more painting on view than ever. Photography and other media were scarce. As was evident last year, much of the painting of display was representational with the preponderance of figurative subject matter being notable. Even at the younger fairs such as NADA, there was an almost complete absence of the type of bland, process-based abstraction that had been everywhere for the last five years. Ever aware of the latest trends, smart dealers of all levels have scrambled to bring image based painting into their programs.

I am happy to see that many of the artists that I selected for last year’s list had stellar years. Brian Belott seemed to be everywhere having been taken on by both Gavin Brown and Moran Bondaroff in 2016. Emerging artists Loie Hollowell and Laeh Glenn both became collector darlings in 2016, and mature artist Nancy Shaver had a very strong outing at Derek Eller that received positive critical attention. – Steven Zevitas, Editor/Publisher

Over New American Paintings’ history we have reviewed the work of tens of thousands of artists. For those with a keen interest in contemporary painting, the publication has had an incredible track record of featuring artists that have gone on to gain significant attention. Iona Rozeal Brown is one such artist. She was featured in our 2002 MFA Annual when she had just graduated from the Yale School of Art.